Priyanka Saxena Ray
Surviving Covid
I represent WelcomHeritage brand in the ITC umbrella and the last few years were unlike anything ever seen before. While the industry closed down last year, we all witnessed a renewed interest in domestic tourism and most of our hotels received a fair amount of domestic traffic. Hotels domestically received a lot of interest actually except for the inbound oriented destination, namely Kerala and Rajasthan, which would have faced a reduction in business. However, other states, such as Karnataka, Himachal and Uttarakhand, which are naturally hilly and nature oriented destinations, did really well.
Domestic Tourism – The Saviour
Initially, it was the staycation concept that kept the hospitality industry afloat. However, once Covid cases started going down and airlines started operating, people too went back to travelling to health, nature, wellness and even wildlife destinations. I think culture and heritage tourism also got a renewed lease as many people have started visiting destinations that were not very popular earlier. So I think the domestic tourism now has gained momentum and is here to stay. This is the single largest change that has emerged post Covid.
I think we have all seen the difference that Domestic Tourism brought about in all countries. All large countries, be it the USA, China, even Europe, thrive majorly on domestic tourism while international tourism is the icing on the cake. That’s what I think will happen in India also. The various states across our country too have become very aggressive in their marketing and I think the tourism framework has changed for the better in India and is now more in line with international norms. Going forward, long haul destinations will take a while to recover but the longer and medium to shorter destinations will pick up. So our strategies are changing accordingly. We are finding a lot more interest from regional destinations for MICE as well as weddings and the pace is picking up.
The return of Weddings and MICE
During COVID a lot of our resorts across remote destinations became favourite for weddings because the number of rooms were defined. You could not go beyond 100 guests and this is where our hotels in small and distant locations worked in. The whole thing is driven due to the need of the consumer to have an event in safe locale. So those destinations that provide safety while travelling and have quality services, cuisine, food, products are bound to succeed – just like many of our hotels did.
However, eventually, I think Covid protocols will become less and less stringent. In fact, in many states, the basic restrictions are also no longer needed. And now, since travel has become a government mandated activity, the authorities are not going to force any Covid protocols that are not really required. And that’s where tourism is growing back.
Back to 2019 figures?
As far as I know, in the last few months, the volumes have already gone up and crossed the 2019 levels! But, rates have not reached there for hotels located in business locations while rates have doubled for hotels in leisure locations. So the leisure domestic segment is in a sweet spot. Some mainstream hotel business of large city hotels has reached back in terms of occupancy, but it’s still not there in terms of ARR, which is why rates are low right now but even that will increase going forward.
Managing Staff – pre and post Covid
One issue that I saw with a lot of hotel chains was that some of them had to let go of some of their staff while some of it went off voluntarily as they were unable to sustain with pay cuts etc. Now with tourism momentum coming back and everyone travelling, there will surely be an HR crunch. But in the meantime, I think automation has taken over in a big way in the last two years, so many properties will not go back to the same level of staffing. However, the competition for employees is increasing and I think this will have a good impact on salaries and benefits. The hotel industry traditionally has not been seen as very good paymasters, which is why talent has been leaving this industry. I think all this will change now. So if you want quality staff, you have to pay people good salary.
Expansion Plans
We opened six hotels last year and we are planning to maintain a similar growth tempo this year because, as I said, the investment climate and the travel climate has shifted towards nature, wellness and leisure destination near cities and there’s a lot of investment happening in that area. So you can be rest assured that you will be seeing a lot of new hotels in the years to come, which will be of a much better quality than they were earlier. And that’s good for all the destinations.
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